(Image: @joshch)
For weeks, Seattle’s Everyday March — including many activists and protesters part of the occupied protest this summer on Capitol Hill — has focused its efforts on spreading the message and demands of the city’s Black Lives Matter movement to neighborhoods and areas far from Pike/Pine and the East Precinct.
But the group returned to Capitol Hill’s streets Thursday night with an organized march from Volunteer Park to 12th and Pine and a call to the neighborhood’s residents to join the ongoing push to defund Seattle Police and build stronger social and community programs.
“Out of your window and into the streets,” the crowd of around 100 called out as it marched from near 15th and Prospect down to 12th Ave and onto the East Precinct for a rally and speeches.
Livestreaming journalist and Capitol Hill resident Joey Wieser covered the progression including the call-outs to residents, a stop in front of 12th Ave’s Violet restaurant, and run-ins with a few people opposed to the message along the way including one man who unsuccessfully attempted to block the street with his car.
Seattle BLM organizers have continued their push following the Seattle City Council’s approval earlier this month of a package of budget cuts to SPD that they say is the start of defunding the department and changing the way the city polices itself. The King County Equity Now and Decriminalize Seattle community groups are now focused on establishing a “2021 participatory budgetary process” with city leaders this fall and have called on Mayor Jenny Durkan to commit to her pledge to make $100 million in funding available to the programs, a dollar amount the mayor claimed was being put toward Black Lives Matter goals in her own budget plans.
The 9 PM event brought the Everyday marchers back to Capitol Hill after recent weeks of smaller protests on the Hill that have included bouts of property damage and clashes with police — and another police sweep of Cal Anderson Park.
Thursday night, the marchers stayed clear of conflicts including the run-ins with individuals along the march who tried to argue with organizers or stop the procession.
There was no reported property damage and no reported arrests.
Saturday, the Everyday group is planning to “march on the governor’s mansion” in Olympia to tell Jay Inslee, “If Black Lives Matter, prove it!”
https://twitter.com/NikkitaOliver/status/1296571041616031745
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On Joey’s video, you can see assault by the peaceful protestors at 57:40
He assaulted the guy in the car and the guy in the alley in the 2 videos I saw. It makes me wonder if he’s the same “peaceful protester” just released from jail that day for felony assault on a neighbor who asked the marchers to be quiet on Queen Anne. After his arrest Wednesday the marchers forced their way in to the lobby of the wrong jail (ha ha) and dumped garbage all over, yelled racist, sexist remarks at staff and vandalized all over the outside of that building and other nearby buildings (all while streaming it). Their peacefulness intensifies daily.
This insanity has to stop. You’re terrorizing residents of Cap Hill that have already been through a lot of trauma this summer. You see the moving trucks on every block when you go out in the mornings.
The city is going to wake up in a few months and realize what we’ve lost: community. I’ve been on the hill 10 years and this ain’t it folks.
Some should be careful what the wish for. If Capitol Hill is hollowed out, so goes the money that allows the vultures to flourish.
My building has lost 8 long-term residents over summer. Been here 20 years and leaving too. They’re preaching to the converted because… why? I’m not sure. Nobody thinks of them positively anymore. They’re not making a positive impact. They’re not getting laws or attitudes changed. They did manage to get a really awesome black female police chief to quit. Nice going. Sad little children desperate to feel they’re being impactful.
The protestors minimize our trauma and call it “inconvenience”. Meanwhile what they have accomplished is to turn those of us that initially supported them, against them. I’m never “coming out of the house and into the streets” for them and I’m more pro-police than I’ve ever been in my entire life. CHOP showed me what is was like to live in a lawless mob ruled society without police protection, no thank you. Durkan is vetoing the council’s work today. Good job at accomplishing nothing you fools!
I live in a building owned by one of the Blackest non profits in town that also houses a union that serves an over 25% Black workforce. Don’t wanna name it by name since this is my own post and not one that belongs to the org, but I’ll just say that workforce – they will deliver for you, and we need them for our upcoming elections to function. The Everyday March visited our neighborhood the other day. We were delightfully surprised to see them. Then they stopped at our location to tag the front of our building with large and sloppy BLM graffiti while a woman in her early twenties was repeatedly saying something into a bullhorn like, “Back when I was young, people treated people like…” We couldn’t hear the rest of what she said. My next door neighbor that was a Black activist deeply involved at CHOP said, “I know that girl and she is in her early 20s and she should probably stop whatever this is and get people to vote instead.” While people from the march were stopped in front of our building they were also screaming things underneath the window of an office that belongs to a Black man. He was on phone calls helping other Black people keep their family’s health insurance and union jobs. We support BLM with everything we do and always will. But folks in our building maybe felt a little confused and hurt to be seeing what we did the other day. Be thoughtful about how pockets of Black people, businesses and non profits exist outside of the CD because they got squeezed out of there like we did. I miss working at our old office at 23rd & Union like I’d miss my mother if she were to pass. But we are where we are now. Love, celebrate and understand all your neighbors because behind that door or wall they might be the same as you or going through the same things as you.
all for the cause, but…YOU DONT NEED TO TAKE YOUR MASK OFF TO USE A MEGAPHONE. masks on and up above your nose.
I can’t tell if you are being deliberately obtuse and passive aggressive in how you refer to this group or if you’re really that sloppy of a journalist. You are conflating many groups here, the group you seem to be trying to emphasize here has clearly repeatedly distinguished themselves as EDM (Every Day March), the group connected with property damage has clearly distinguished themselves separately as ENDD, and neither are “seattle BLM”. Conflating them all, while they have some shared demands and goals, does everyone a disservice.
Echoing KB, I came here to say the same. And unlike previous commenters: as a resident of Capitol Hill since 1992, I am happy to stay and help improve Capitol Hill with fewer police, a more compassionate budget, and more community services.
This march involved a very small number of activists. It seems their “movement” is losing steam.
I live here and support the everyday marchers- all one has to do is watch any of their hundreds of live streaming to see this article is full of lies and misrepresentation! I’ve seen armed white nationalist being escorted by Seattle police while screaming racist hateful crap as the cops smiled! The disconnect of white Americans while supporting these continued abusers called cops only shows more Fragility and ignorance as we cling to capitalism at the cost of our BIPOC community members and those stuck in systemic poverty.